


'It's Not a Heart Attack' Protocol

by kaeorin



Series: Stark Tower: Avengers Drabbles [5]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, F/M, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Other, Panic Attacks, Reader-Insert, Stark Tower, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 12:56:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15119855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin
Summary: When something triggers an unexpected panic attack, you get some comfort from someone you wouldn’t have expected (but maybe should have).





	'It's Not a Heart Attack' Protocol

**Author's Note:**

> The reader in this story had a panic attack. If that's something that triggers something in you, please beware of reading this story. The last thing I want to do is ruin anyone's day.
> 
> Last school year, I started writing a lot of "someone reassures the reader during a fit of anxiety" ficlets/drabbles because dealing with high schoolers can really set off my anxiety. Thankfully, this summer has already been lovely and relaxing. I wrote this after thinking about Tony's anxiety attacks in IM3 and how he might approach that in the tower. 
> 
> I've only just realized that the timeline is all wacky and obviously I know that JARVIS was still around circa-IM3, but...I don't know. I'm not going for full-on accuracy here, just for doofy little fluff pieces that maybe people will enjoy. If you liked it, please take a minute to let me know. Or, hell, just click that "kudos" box if you can't think of anything to say? It really means a lot to me (and to other authors too) when readers do that.
> 
> This is the first gender-completely-neutral piece that I've written in a little while. Do you prefer gender-neutral pieces, or are pieces with female-presenting or female-bodied readers okay? Also, are there any storylines you'd like to see? Any characters I haven't touched on yet? (I've got a couple of stories that center around Wanda, but I can't quite get them to fruition. Maybe a bit of motivation from interested parties might help?) 
> 
> I dunno! Thank you for reading! I know I've been kind of flooding the market lately, as it were.

It started out as a perfectly normal day.

You were sitting in the kitchen with Clint and Natasha, drinking coffee and basically just enjoying each other’s presence. The two of them had just gotten back from some top-secret mission halfway around the world. It was always a little lonely when they were gone. It wasn’t easy to be the only non-enhanced, non-godlike Avenger in Stark Tower. Maybe they’d felt the same way, because they’d adopted you into their little circle almost immediately. Everything felt light and easy for once. Clint was fiddling with his arrows, but he wasn’t really giving them his full attention. In fact, he’d just cracked a joke that actually made Nat snort and try to hide her face behind her coffee cup, and the soaring delight on his face had made your heart swell with affection for the both of them.

But then the world caved in.

You were on your feet in an instant, your lifetime of training kicking in to keep you safe. Smoke filled the room, but couldn’t quite blot out the sunlight coming in through the windows. You heard Natasha’s voice, but you couldn’t quite make out what she said. Maybe she’d been calling for Clint, because his voice came next. Neither of them sounded hurt. In fact, he might have even laughed as he answered. He said something about his arrow. There was something wrong with your ears. Everything sounded like it was underwater. Was it just from the explosion?

Your heart was pounding harder than it had in a long time, including the time you’d stupidly challenged Steve to a race in the park. You couldn’t shake the feeling that something was bearing down on you, something big and something evil. 

“Hey, it’s all good.” Clint’s face came out of nowhere. He was staring at you. Were you being weird? Your stomach clenched so tightly that you worried you’d throw up your coffee all over him. “Breathe, kid. It was just a short in one of the exploding arrow heads. You’re okay.” He squeezed your shoulder, and in almost any other situation, it would have been a welcome reassurance, but right now it only made things worse. You just barely stopped yourself from smacking his hand away.

“I’m fine,” you lied through gritted teeth. You could feel your self-control slipping. You had to get away from these people before you really lost it, or else who knew what could happen. “Maybe don’t play with explosives at the breakfast table?” 

Between the non-existent water that seemed to fill your ears and the drumming of your own heartbeat, whatever he said in response was lost to you. You tried to choke out some kind of an explanation, but, when you couldn’t, you just pushed past him to the elevators.

Even though the rational part of your brain knew that the elevators in Stark Tower were among some of the fastest in the world, the trip up to your floor still felt like it took twenty years. In the meantime, all you had was your own stupid racing thoughts. You were losing it. Any second now, you knew that your body was just going to shut down, just collapse in on itself, and you needed to be somewhere where no one else could see you. 

When the doors finally opened again, you stumbled out onto your floor. Dimly, you could hear F.R.I.D.A.Y. saying something to you, but you couldn’t make out the words. You somehow managed to hold it together just long enough to wedge yourself between the side of your bed and the wall and clutched your knees to your chest. Your lungs were burning, but you couldn’t draw a breath. 

“Activating It’s Not a Heart Attack Protocol.” Were you still going crazy, or had F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s volume been turned way up? You pressed your hands against your ears and looked up in time to see the television mounted on your wall click on.

Some kind of anatomy model was displayed on the screen, along with some words and numbers that you knew would have made sense if you weren’t losing your damn mind at the moment. As you looked, one of the numbers grew larger, blocking out the model and filling most of the screen. 

“Your heart rate is elevated, but still within the normal range,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. went on. It clicked, then, that the number was your heart rate, displayed on the screen. “You are not dying, Agent. You’re going to be okay.”

Somehow, despite everything, you managed to laugh—just once, and it was short, and barking, hardly really even a laugh at all. Your whole body was shuddering, despite the tight grip that you kept around your knees. Your skin prickled. “I know I’m not dying, F.R.I.D.A.Y.,” you said, a little more sharply than you meant to. Honestly, it was kind of a miracle that you were even speaking at all. Your body was going absolutely haywire. Your heartbeat was so loud that you couldn’t hear F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s response. You’d had attacks like these in the past, but this one felt worse than anything else. Maybe this was the one that finally killed you. 

Your head spun as the dizziness set in. It felt like your body was moving on its own, or maybe like the floor was spinning beneath you. You pressed yourself a little more solidly against the wall, but even that seemed elastic. Every time you took a breath, your stomach lurched. Any second now, whatever large, evil thing had been looming on the edges of your consciousness in the kitchen was going to smash through and swallow you up.

Sure enough, you heard your door slam open, and you pressed your fist to your mouth to keep from drawing its attention. Some tiny part of your mind knew that this was ridiculous, that you were being an idiot and one of your teammates had just followed you up here to check on you, but the rest of your brain was spiraling out of control. It was something large, and unstoppable, and it was looking for you.

“Hey.”

And it had Tony Stark’s voice. 

“You’re gonna get through this. You’re having a panic attack.” He spoke in a low voice, but firm. Right now it reminded you of the therapist you’d seen once or twice when you were a kid.

“I know.” It was hard to force the words out: your throat felt like it was closing up. Your tongue would swell next, you remembered, and you would spend the next few minutes feeling like you’d been buried alive. This time, you would die. You were sure of it. For all the time you spent training in the gym, kicking your own ass to get better, this was something you could not fight.

There was movement in front of you, and then you saw Tony crouch down into your line of vision. He was just at the end of the bed, but he looked stretched out, elongated, like you were looking at him through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. If your face wasn’t already flushed with heat, you might have burned at the way he was looking at you. Why hadn’t you locked the door?

“Are you reacting to something that’s happening now, or something that happened in the past?” He had that same tone of voice. Where had he learned to speak like a damn therapist?

“I don’t know. Neither. It’s nothing,” you mumbled, even as your mind spun out wildly. The man in front of you had saved the world countless times. He practically did it on a daily basis. But now, for whatever reason, he found himself in your room trying to comfort you like a baby. Fuck. “It’s nothing. Clint’s arrow.”

“Was that the explosion?” He sounded a little more like himself. Maybe you nodded, or maybe you only thought you did. “If that idiot damaged my cabinets again, the next batch of arrows I make him are going to be made of Jell-o.”

Despite everything, you laughed. There was just something about imagining Clint loosing an arrow at a bad guy, only to have it splat harmlessly against his armor—or exoskeleton, or...whatever. But then, of course, the thought of what the bad guy would do next made your pull your knees a little closer to your chest.

“Okay, new tactic. How long has this been happening? This time, I mean.” He didn’t sound irritated, but you knew he had to be. He’d been working on something big in his lab, you knew. On the rare occasion that he resurfaced lately, he told anyone who would listen how close he was to a breakthrough. He didn’t need to be here. Shame replaced some of your blind panic. Maybe you shrugged. “F.R.I.D.A.Y.?”

“About seven minutes, sir.”

Seven minutes. Was that all? Your body ached like you’d run a marathon. Seven minutes. The world was ending. You heard someone shifting, and then Tony was closer than he’d been before. He held his hands up as though making sure you could see them. 

“Can I touch you? Can I take your hand? I want to help you.” 

“I’m just being stupid. You don’t need to help me.” Telling such a blatant lie made you feel a bit like a stupid little kid, but he didn’t need to be here. He had bigger things to worry about. 

“Sure I do. Look, you’re almost through the worst of it. If you reach out and take my hand, we can breathe through it together. Or I can just talk at you. You wanna hear what I’m working on right now?” 

No. Your stomach clenched again, much more violently this time, and your absolute terror that you were going to throw up on _Tony Stark_ almost sent you spiraling out of control again. He was holding his hand out to you. He was kneeling within your reach but he didn’t push into your personal space. He was waiting.

When you reached your hand out to him, your whole arm was shaking so badly that you almost dropped it back into your lap, just so Tony wouldn’t fucking see. But somehow you closed your fingers around his. In turn, he curled his other hand around the back of yours. How were you at once so hot and so cold? His touch made you realize something else—you were clammy. Gross. You tried to pull away, mumbling your apologies, but he didn’t let you go. Instead, he took your hand and pressed it against his stomach. 

“Breathe here,” he said. “Nice and slow. Don’t exhale until I do. No one’s ever died of a panic attack.”

You tried. Really, you tried. But he was breathing too slowly. If you tried that, you would most definitely faint. You tried to pull your hand away again, but he just patted the back of your hand and started counting.

“It’ll get easier if you can straighten your legs or just sit up straighter,” he said between deep breaths. “Give yourself more room for air.”

Maybe he was right. Your heartbeat wasn’t quite so loud in your ears anymore. With some effort, you managed to unfurl yourself. Carefully, you slipped your legs around his and straightened your aching back. He made some kind of approving noise but kept breathing.

You knew what was coming next. All of your attacks in the past, they’d all gone the same way. Panic. Choking. Freaking out. Then, just as you were starting to come out of it, you always started crying. You could feel the tears welling up, could feel the lump growing in your throat, and you tried to choke out an apology—or a warning—but Tony didn’t respond.

Each time you cried after one of these, it was usually for the same reasons. They made you feel so helpless. You could bring down any number of enemies—at the same time, even—but you couldn’t even get your own stupid body back under control? For a third time, you tried to pull your hand away. He’d talked you through the worst of it, which was about a thousand times more than he’d had to do in the first place, but he could go back to work now. He let you pull away from his stomach, but kept your hand folded carefully in both of his. 

Finally, the storm began to pass. You couldn’t hear your own heartbeat anymore, and you were no longer choking for air. Your entire body felt empty, completely drained. And stupid. Tony was tracing soft circles against the back of your hand, mumbling something like a mantra:

“This is normal. This is going to pass. You’re going to be fine.” 

You drew in one last shaky breath and wiped at your face with your free hand. Your cheeks still felt warm, but you knew that it wasn’t because of your panic anymore. Fuck. “Thank you,” you mumbled. Your throat felt raw. “I’m sorry. Was I...screaming or something? How did you know?” That was really the only thing that made sense, but it did make you feel sick. If your throat felt this shredded, and he’d heard you all the way in his lab, then surely everyone else in the tower had heard you too. 

“No, you weren’t screaming.” He answered quickly, like maybe he realized what was going on inside your head and wanted to nip that wild ride in the bud. “It’s part of the protocol. If F.R.I.D.A.Y. picks up on the signs of a panic attack in anyone, she’s supposed to show them that they’re okay and notify me.”

As wrung-out as you were, it was still hard to miss that note of...hesitance in his voice. It sounded like maybe he was starting to realize that he’d said too much? Things slowly started to click into place in your sluggish brain.

“You get panic attacks,” you said slowly. It made sense. He’d faced down certain death how many times? He’d gone hand-to-hand with just about all of the world’s worst enemies in the past few years. Of course he’d be affected. Shame stabbed through you, mostly at not having realized sooner. Panic attacks weren’t easy on your own. In the heat of the moment, you always just wanted to close yourself up and hide yourself away, but it let you get stuck in your own head. The few times that anyone had been around to witness your attacks, they were humiliating, sure, but they were so much shorter. And he clearly knew that—maybe firsthand. “Tony...”

“You can configure the protocol for yourself,” he said in a rush before you could figure out what else to say to him. “You can tell F.R.I.D.A.Y. not to tell me, or to tell someone else instead, or you can tell her what to say, whatever helps you most. Whatever works. She’s here to help you.” He wouldn’t look at you, but, thankfully, he also hadn’t released you.

“Thank you. That’s brilliant.” And it was. Having another human being bear witness to these fits was a nightmare. You couldn’t imagine that it’d be any better for Tony Stark. But, rather than suffer alone, he’d created a program to help—and not just to help himself, but to help anyone else on the team who might need it. “You’re brilliant.”

“It’s always nice to be appreciated, darlin’.” He smiled tightly, still not looking at you, but it wasn’t hard to catch the serious note under his flippant tone of voice. He squeezed your hand one last time and then finally released you. “Are you hungry? It’s important to eat after a near-death experience. Build your strength back up. Regulate your blood sugar.” He stood up and held out his hand to help you up. 

“You said no one’s ever died of a panic attack.” Your legs were a little unsteady, but they held you up, at least. Still, you were grateful for the way he tucked your hand into the crook of his elbow before he ushered you towards the elevator.

“And they haven’t. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t _feel_ like you’re dying.” He shot you a look that almost sent you to your knees again. It wasn’t pity or fear. He didn’t feel sorry for you, and he didn’t seem afraid of triggering another panic attack. No, he was looking at you like you were an equal. There was camaraderie in his expression. It filled you with a warmth that was blessedly unrelated to your anxiety. “Let’s go, kid. I’ll buy you a burger.”


End file.
